An Innocent Life Gone Missing
by Dralion Lily
Summary: It's a short story told in the perspective of Holden Caulfield, during the main crisis that changed his view towards life...


**An Innocent Life Gone Missing**

_By: Dralion Lily_

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Catcher in the Rye, or any of J.D. Salinger's works.  The author himself was a genius in creating the great piece of work we read for school, pleasure, etc.  Although, I won't say the author didn't have his own issues when writing the story.  Eh-hem…anyways, this little piece of work inspired me when I was asked to write a creative essay for my English class.  It came out quite well, so I decided to post it.  Enjoy…

*~*

Allie was in the hospital room right now.  We all had to cancel the trip in Maine short – we being the family and all – and went back to New York.  He's dying from leukemia.  I hope the kid makes it out all right.  A kind of guy like Allie shouldn't die like this, and all.

Well anyways, I'm still sitting in the same goddam plastic chair hours later in the hospital, when the doctor came out.  He's all grim looking, and I was wondering if I could go see Allie and give him his baseball mitt.  He walks up to my parents, grabbing his mask with one hand, and rubbing his bald head with the other.  I bet Allie could use his head for a ball or something.

"Mr. and Mrs. Caulfield?" the doctor asked.  I thought it was pretty stupid to ask if my parents were who they were.  I mean, there wasn't practically anybody else in the stupid corridor, and we were with Allie when the medics took him to the operating room.  The stupid doctor even looked at us and told us he'd take care of him!

"Doctor, how's Allie?  Is he ok?  Tell me he's alive!"  Mom said, with tears streaming down her cheeks.

The doctor had this saddened, sympathetic look.  I knew right then and there that Allie didn't make it.  He wouldn't be going to his next baseball game, where we'd be all cheering for him.  He wouldn't be able to hold his lucky baseball with his favorite mitt ever again.

"I'm sorry," the doctor said.  "There wasn't anything I could have done."

My dad held onto my mom.  Dad was never a man to cry, but it was moments like these that he looked like he would.  My mom broke down in tears, sobbing into my dad's chest, while dad just held on to her.  Mom looked real vulnerable, poor woman.  If you're wondering what I was doing the whole time, I just sat there, in that crappy hospital chair, watching the whole scene.  I didn't cry, I didn't get angry, and I didn't get up to comfort my mom.  I just sat in the damm plastic chair with a blank expression, as if I hadn't recognized that Allie had died.

That night, I slept in the garage.  I don't know why, I just felt like it.  But, I couldn't fall asleep, so I just stood up and took a look around the place.  It hadn't changed at all since we left for Maine. Dad's station wagon was in the middle of the garage; and three bicycles were standing on the top-right corner.  There was a red bicycle that was mine, a blue bicycle that was Allie's, and a black bicycle that was D.B.'s.  I remember how we had all gone riding last summer to Hudson Park, just to check out the view of the river.  There were piled boxes in the garage as well, mostly with old toys that me and Allie used to play with.  And dad's toolbox was on the top-left side of the garage, where he usually had it.  Then I just stared at one of the many windows of the garage.  I stared at it for seconds, then seconds turned into minutes, and minutes turned into hours.  Finally, I just snapped, made a fist with my right hand, and punched the window.  The window shattered into pieces, flying all over the place.  My hand was bleeding, and I had some pieces of glass stuck in it, too.  The pain wasn't at all unbearable; it actually felt pretty good.  I decided to smash the other windows.  When I was done with all of them, I turned to my dad's station wagon, but my hand was pretty much beaten up and my parents had shown up to find out what all the noise was.  They looked around at the whole scene, and finally they stared at me and then my bloody hand.  I bet they thought they had a psycho of a kid in their hands.  Mom ran up to me, with a cloth in her hand and she bandaged it.  They didn't say anything, but I knew that the speech would come; if not now, some day.  They took me to the doctor to get the hand patched up.

A few days later and it was Allie's funeral.  Everybody was dressed in black on that day.  I guess for this one time, I didn't break the rules so I wore black too.  Everyone was crying and sobbing, especially Allie's friends who had found the time to come see him one last time.  Even ol' D.B. had appeared, the putrefied soul.  Allie's casket was open, and everyone walked up to him in a line to say his or her last good-byes.  I stayed in the back of the room, waiting for my chance to be alone with Allie.  When the room was empty, I walked up to the casket, with Allie's favorite mitt in my hand.  I just stared at Allie.  He looked real peaceful.  I didn't want to touch him; he was dressed in a white tuxedo and he looked so relaxed that I didn't want to disturb his sleep.  I had a quiet conversation with the kid.  We always had great conversations.  I decided to keep his baseball mitt, just for safekeeping.  I put on the mitt on my bandaged hand and walked out of the room to meet up with my parents.

Allie was buried, and the next few days passed by like slow, living nightmares that you just couldn't wake up from.  I was suffering from insomnia ever since Allie's death.  One day, I sat on the couch, staring at the TV.  Dad just appeared out of nowhere right by my side with mom.  I had a feeling that they had seen the way I was glaring at the TV, like I wanted to break it like I had done to the windows in the garage the other night.  They stood there for a while, just staring at me, waiting for me to look at them.  After a few minutes, I got up to turn the TV off, and then went back to sit down on the couch.  A few more minutes, then I asked, "What?"

Mom and dad exchanged a few glances between one another and then looked at me.  Finally, dad broke the silence.  "Son, your mother and I were thinking…that maybe…"

"We think that you might need help, dear.  Maybe you should see a psychiatrist," Mom finished the sentence.

I turned to look at them for a few minutes, then I returned to look back at the blank screen of the TV.  I just shrugged.  They probably took it as a yes from me.

But I didn't need a stupid psychiatrist.  I wanted Allie back.

The End.

*~*

Notes from author (that's me, not J.D.): R&R as you wish. I know that it doesn't quite correspond to the story in a way, but it was written as a 'what-if.'  And, I hadn't read up to the part in the book where things started to make sense.  Either way, thank you for reading!


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